A contender for WGOTY | Review - The Walking Dead: Destinies
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✨Overview
The Walking Dead is one of those franchises that’s probably in a weird limbo between popularity and obscurity. People probably stopped watching it or reading the comics years ago, and yet, it somehow keeps on low-key pumping video games of mixed quality left and right, and people still keep on buying it.
From the massive failure of Overkill's The Walking Dead to the cult success of the Telltale series and the impressive VR game series Saints and Sinners. Now we have another game that is probably a few years too late visually and narratively, and no the title is not a typo — It’s really a contender for the worst game of the year award if there ever was one.
🟩Pros
+Brings alternate story paths for AMC’s established TV series storyline
🟥Cons
-Dated and ugly visuals
-Poor presentation; the cutscenes aren’t even animated
-Clunky gameplay
-Major bugs
-Only covers up to Season 4
📖Story and Premise
The Walking Dead: Destinies invites players to embark on an alternative retelling of AMC's iconic television series. Players will take control of various characters from the AMC series, whether friend or foe, ranging from Rick to the Governor. Their choices will shape the destiny of a team of characters from The Walking Dead universe, altering the course of the story and revealing the diverse outcomes that certain choices can bring—outcomes that fans may have always imagined.
However, the story it covers is relatively short, not to mention the pacing is quick and skips/shortens/omits various events and characters. All in all, it encompasses only up to Season 4. These story arcs may have been forgotten by most and remembered only by the most avid fans like me. So no Terminus, no Wolves, no Negan, and many more. The concept of seeing alternative stories coming out of alternative choices is indeed interesting, but I feel that the game at its current narrative coverage came too late.
🎨Graphics and Presentation
Graphically, the game stands out for all the wrong reasons. This is the most noticeable aspect right out of the bat; the game just outright looks bad, and maybe the worse game I’ve seen visually in recent times. Even for last gen standards, this is way below it. It looks worse than a PS3 game, and we’re not even talking about the animations and voice acting yet.
The characters look like deformed representations of the AMC characters, and all the story cutscenes are just moving stills with voice overs. I played it on the Nintendo Switch, which made the experience even a lot worse than playing on modern consoles with its low resolution and 30FPS performance, but regardless, it looks bad across all platforms.
The animations are low quality and everything from the running, dodging, to attacks and interactions looks very goofy and clunky. The voice acting is bad overall, some voice actors are returning, but the majority are not, so there is a bit of impersonation work with the characters voices; some more effective than others, but most are just badly done.
🎮Gameplay
The Walking Dead: Destinies is basically a third-person action game, the players are placed in iconic locations like Atlanta, the Greene family farm, the prison, and Woodbury, reliving key moments from The Walking Dead. The narrative unfolds through crucial choice-driven moments, allowing players to alter the course of AMC's The Walking Dead history.
The game will occassionally present the players with two choices, which will save one character and doom another. For example, one of the most iconic moments of the TV series is the incident between Rick and Shane, and here you’ll get to pick which character lives or dies. If you have watched the TV series and still remember the story, you probably will have an insight on the outcome of some of the choices being presented.
Me personally, I’d like to see things play differently, so I opted to chose the alternative routes. This aspect basically the only interesting aspect of this game, and they could have just doubled down on this concept choices matter instead, creating a game akin to Telltale’s approach. The game features five acts, each comprising around five levels with varying objectives. Objectives include eliminating walkers, moving from point A to point B, finding items, or interacting with characters.
Mechanically, the game features basic and heavy melee attacks, as well as the option to take things stealthy with one-hit take downs. Each character will have their own unique melee and ranged weapon equipped (For example, Michonne’s Katana or Rick’s Revolver).
In addition, the characters also have a unique skill tree with effects that are shared within a specific character group. For example, unlocking skills for Shane will also make it available for others to use. However, if Shane dies, you’ll lose this unlocked skill, further emphasizing the importance of choices. On paper, it’s a cool concept just like the narrative premise, but implemented here, it’s just a clunky and buggy piece of work. The game overall is buggy, with various game breaking bugs existing as of writing. My worst experience was encountering a white screen upon reloading a checkpoint, with no way to fix it unless I restart multiple times.
⚖️Conclusion
The game's attempt at offering a fresh perspective on the iconic TV series is hindered by dated visuals, buggy gameplay, and poor presentation. The game's belated arrival seems to missed the peak of the series' popularity by a few years and is a missed opportunity on all fronts; timing, polish, and execution. The only saving grace is the alternate stories that can come out of alternate decisions you can make in the game, but even with these elements, it isn’t enough to push the game from more than 1 out of 10. A true contender, for worst game of the year.
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